Should You Choose Fire Suppression or Prevention for Residential Properties
Multifamily property owners, managers, and executives all worry about fires in their properties. Risk reduction is often a primary focus for their role.
If you’re reading this, you are probably one of those (maybe with a slightly different title).
There are two main approaches to reducing fire risk and the costs associated with fires.
Fire Prevention and Fire Suppression
Is it better to try and prevent fires before they happen, or to put them out as soon as they start?
The obvious answer is to do both. But budget constraints and other variables make doing both difficult sometimes.
Let’s look at the differences between these two methods of fire risk management. We will talk about the strengths and drawbacks of each method. We will also compare the most common solutions and products for multifamily properties.
At the end, we'll give our recommendations to combine prevention with suppression in your properties.
What is the difference between fire suppression and fire prevention for multifamily?
The top concerns we hear from property managers surrounding their properties’ fire risk are tenant safety and costs.
Those concerns are both satisfied by both fire suppression and prevention. The difference comes in the general approach to fire safety these methods take.
Fire Suppression for Fire Safety
The fire suppression method is a logical one. If a fire starts, put it out quickly to reduce the risk to tenants and minimizes repair/cleanup costs.
When we talk about fire suppression, most are referring to automatic fire suppression. This includes things like stovetop canisters, or fire sprinkler systems.
Fire Prevention in Fire Safety
Fire prevention takes a more cautious approach. If you can remove the factors that lead to fires, you can stop a fire before it happens. Prevention can save lives and property without cleanup or damage costs.
Fire prevention can mean many things. Auto shutoff devices prevent the #1 cause of building fires. There are other devices and simple solutions that remove additional risk factors.
Strengths of automatic fire suppression systems in multifamily buildings
Automatic fire suppression can be highly effective at putting out a contained fire.
The effectiveness depends heavily on the suppression system. For example, stovetop canisters are highly effective at putting out a fire on the stove.
Automatic sprinklers, however, work to extinguish a small fire in most rooms.
Suppression systems work the same way a fire fighter would:
The top priority once a fire starts is to put it out.
If it cannot be extinguished, suppression should at the very least slow the burn. This allows people to escape the building safely.
Fire suppression is one of the most impactful ways to protect property and save lives. It works to reduce damage costs while minimizing cleanup costs.
The weakness of fire suppression systems
The primary fault in suppression is that the fire has already started.
Fire sprinklers will likely put out a small fire. But many fires, including stove top fires can take a long time to start. This means that there is a strong possibility of smoke damage occurring.
Additionally, when sprinklers deploy they will cause thousands of dollars in water damage. This is to the unit with the fire and any units below.
Another big concern is that suppression doesn’t permanently break the fire triangle.
What is the fire triangle?
The fire triangle includes three elements, Heat, Fuel, and Oxygen. This is what is required for a fire to exist.
Suppression works to remove the oxygen by smothering the fire with chemicals. The addition of these chemicals also reduces the temperature, impacting the fire triangle.
The problem occurs if there is no human intervention at that point.
For example if this is a stovetop fire, a range suppression canister puts the fire out but the stove is still on.
There is still fuel (food, oil, etc), there is still oxygen in the air, and there’s still a heat source.
Because the fire triangle is still intact, the fire has to reignite eventually. This is a scientific fact.
Unfortunately, reignition temperatures are actually lower than initial ignition temperatures (see below).
This is a graph showing the changes in oil as it heats up. As you can see, the auto-ignition point is just below 800°F. After it's ignited and extinguished, the auto-ignition point lowers to just above 650°F
Suppression is amazing if someone is present in the unit to then later remove the fuel source and cut the heat.
However, if the fire is unattended, it only delays the inevitable. And importantly, unattended fires are the #1 cause of fires in multifamily property.
Comparing stovetop suppression methods
According to the NFPA, the most common multifamily property fires are cooking fires.
Thus, the most impactful form of automatic suppression is stovetop suppression.
Common methods include:
- Dry Canisters
- Wet Suppression
- Automatic Sprinklers
Dry Canister Suppression
Dry suppression is the optimal route for extinguishing the most common cooking fires.
StoveTop FireStop is the tried and tested leader in stovetop fire suppression.
If you are looking for stovetop suppression for multifamily properties, this is the best option.
They offer three methods for suppression:
- Rangehood - The standard canisters, most affordable, simple install
- LowPro - Lower profile, more expensive, tenants less likely to remove
- Microhood - For over the range microwaves, mid-range price, covers two burners per device
FireStop’s systems all use a dry powder suppressant, which works for all types of fires.
They’ve been around the longest and know what they’re doing.
StoveTop FireStop also offers a free replacement program. Fire protection shouldn’t cost more than it needs to.
There are other brands that offer an alternative for dry stovetop suppression.
Wet Chemical Suppression
The main alternative for dry fire suppression is wet chemical suppression.
These use a liquid-based suppressant which works well for some types of fires. However, liquid-based means water, which can be a big problem for any grease fires.
If you are considering the two options we always recommend dry over wet suppression.
As all firefighters are taught, adding water to a grease fire only makes it bigger.
Automatic Sprinklers
The final boss of fire suppression for multifamily are fire sprinklers. These are required in many localities because they are so effective at saving lives.
Sprinklers are not a damage or cost reduction tool. They are used to stop tenants from losing their lives in an emergency.
If you are relying on your building's sprinkler system to save you money from a fire you are going to spend a lot of money on repairs, cleanup, and insurance.
Sprinklers are a great tool for suppressing fires. But they are a horrible tool for saving you money and stopping fires early.
If you are looking to reduce damage, consider a range hood suppression system.
Strengths of fire prevention
The biggest strength of fire prevention is in the name… ‘prevention’.
If a fire never starts, there is no smoke damage, fire damage, water damage, repair costs, or cleanup costs.
Fire prevention for multifamily properties comes down to two main areas:
Fire Prevention Technology & Fire Prevention Strategies.
Strategies include things like educating tenants, regular inspections, and proper maintenance.
The biggest strength for these strategies is that they are simple and customizable.
If your team identifies potential risks, you can take action and prevent fires.
The only automatic fire prevention technology for multifamily is from us at FireAvert. We build a device that fits behind the stove and automatically shuts it off. It works by detecting the earliest signs of a potential fire.
The strengths of automatic fire prevention tech is that it works behind the scenes without any need for human intervention.
It completely eliminates the #1 most common fire.
Prevention works to save tenant lives while protecting property.
The most common and most essential form of fire prevention tech is a smoke alarm.
Smoke alarms are the first line of defense for every property to prevent fires and save lives.
The weaknesses of Fire Prevention
If you really think about it, preventing a fire never has any downsides. No lives lost and no costs for 0 fires.
But all jokes aside, fire prevention technology does have some weaknesses. The Auto Stove Shutoff device requires a properly installed smoke alarm.
If a tenant removes an alarm, the device is incapable of detecting the early signs of a fire. We've solved this with an alarm tamper sensor with notifications for removed alarms.
The other primary weakness is tenants with horrible cooking habits. For example, a tenant putting frozen food in a pot of hot oil could cause an explosion. The exploding grease might cause a small fire to spread.
In that case the Auto Stove Shutoff will turn off the heat. This will take a longer time to put out the fire compared to a stovetop canister.
Comparing multifamily fire prevention solutions
When it comes to dedicated prevention solutions, there's only one built for multifamily. The Auto Stove Shutoff.
Other solutions prevent fires, but are not designed for multifamily properties. Still other options may prevent fires, but aren’t built to directly prevent them.
FireAvert
The Auto Stove Shutoff by FireAvert prevents fires, stopping them before they start. From Jan 1st 2026 to August 21st 2026, these devices prevented 1,129 fires in multifamily homes.
The device has a number of different options:
Connectivity Type
- PRO - PRO Auto Stove Shutoffs can send alerts to owners/maintenance teams for stoves shutoff, smoke alarms , excessive cooking, and more. PRO devices also gather data into a Monitoring Dashboard. There you can see reports, track tenant risk, customize alerts, and manage devices.
- Standard - The standard Auto Stove Shutoff still functions to prevent fires. But it doesn’t send alerts or gather data for improved fire safety.
Stove Type
- For Gas Stoves - Offering both PRO and Standard variants. The Gas Auto Stove Shutoff cuts power to the stove and closes the gas line. It's fire prevention without risk of gas leaks.
- For Electric Stoves - Electric Auto Stove Shutoffs come in 3-prong and 4-prong outlet variations depending on the stove type you have.
BurnerAlert
A simple solution that tries to also stop fires from unattended cooking. BurnerAlert will sound an alarm if the stove has been on for long periods of time.
They do have compatibility with Amazon Alexa. But there is no built-in dashboard for bulk management.
BurnerAlert acts as a timer for stoves in your buildings, a simple solution that might work for some.
Regular Inspections
This is the most neglected fire prevention solution. But it can have a massive impact on your property.
Forgotten cooking is the most common type of fire. However electrical fires still need to be considered.
Have your maintenance teams do an annual inspection. By checking appliances and all wiring you can prevent them completely.
Planning for and conducting inspections are a staple for multifamily fire safety. If your property doesn’t already do these, start now to save yourself the headache of a preventable fire.
How a software solution can reduce your overall property fire risk
For the best results combining suppression and prevention is the most effective. And it will ultimately reduce your risk and save you the most money.
However, if you only have the budget for one option, which should you choose?
Simply, the smartest decision is the smartest solution.
FireAvert’s Auto Stove Shutoff devices prevent fires. Our PRO devices connect to our software solution that helps stop even more fires.
FireAvert PRO includes:
- PRO Auto Stove Shutoff devices
- PRO Monitoring dashboard - ‘FireAvert Connect’
- Options for accessory devices like Smoke Alarm Tamper Sensors. Plus a line of water damage protection devices
The Dashboard analyzes each tenant's habits and gives them a fire risk score.
It tracks how often the smoke alarm sounds in their unit.
It tracks how often their stove is shutoff from forgotten cooking.
It sends notifications to maintenance teams for shutoff stoves or active smoke alarms.
With our tamper sensors installed you can see which tenants are trying to remove the smoke alarms.
This information is directly actionable for you and your team. If you recognize tenants with unsafe habits, you can provide education.
If their habits don’t change you can choose to install stove suppression devices.
It helps you make smarter decisions and stop more fires year over year.
Multifamily customer testimonial
Just last month we received an email from a FireAvert customer. Their FireAvert PRO system stopped a fire.
They had a tenant set a bunch of mail, boxes, and other stuff on and near the stove.
When the tenant placed these down they accidentally bumped the stove and it turned on. They left for the afternoon immediately after not noticing the stove was on.
As the stuff caught fire, the maintenance team received a text notification about a sounding smoke alarm.
The stove shutoff and a stovetop canister activated.
However, the burning items weren’t contained to just the stovetop. The flames had begun spreading to the items placed on the countertop.
But, the maintenance team acted on the notification, contacting the tenant.
When they learned the tenant was out of the house, they went into the apartment and put out the fire immediately.
This is an extraordinarily unlucky situation.
If the items were just on the stove, the fire would have sizzled out safely when FireAvert shut off the stove.
Or they would have been suppressed by the stovetop canister. And with no heat source, reignition would have been impossible.
Fires are so problematic because crazy, one-time situations like this still can happen. Each situation poses unique risks to properties.
A perfect storm combined to start a potentially huge fire.
But this property had no losses and only had to sweep up a bit of burnt paper and cardboard. All thanks to layered protection and a proactive maintenance team.
Accidents happen and every system has flaws.
Your property could save thousands of dollars from smoke and fire damage. Layer protection, get both suppression and prevention solutions.
